Rotation of the Cosmos
Well, I've finished my first essay for university, entitled "Ernst Mach on Rotation of the Cosmos". It's not very polished, and rather lightweight because there's a great deal that I don't know about, but I'm rather happy with the essay nonetheless. It's a starting sketch for some ideas I hope to pursue later on, when I get some more vocabulary of concepts and methods.
Ernst Mach was an Austrian physicist in the late 1800s-1916. He's generally known for casting doubt on conventional thinking - which in his day, was that time was uniform for all observers, that there was a spatial frame which was at absolute rest for linear (translational) motion, and in particular that there was a way to tell if one's frame of reference was rotating with respect to the cosmos. With Einstein's papers in the 1905-1918 period, all that came under question, and we nowadays have new views. Einstein credits Mach's book "The Science of Mechanics" (originally in German) with influencing him.
And it is certainly possible to see how some parts of Mach's book influenced Einstein. Mach is not very precise in many of his statements, and sometimes states his cases too strongly, but such stimulating ideas, in the hands of an Einstein, can be worth a thousand conventionalities.
My essay is particularly focused on Mach's statements about whether rotary motion is absolute or relational, and explores three questions: Does the cosmos rotate? How could we tell? Why should we care?
If you are thinking there is a distinction between the cosmos rotating, and assemblages of objects (like galaxies) within the cosmos rotating with respect to the cosmos, you are correct; there is indeed a distinction. Nonetheless, some of Mach's ideas suggest that we might be able to measure cosmic "material influence" rotation (gravitation, ie spatial structure) vs what we observe via photons (light).
The essay is http://publish.uwo.ca/~krobe8/mach-rotation.pdf
As with all my scientific efforts, I reserve the option of changing my mind! If ever I stop changing my mind, that would mean that I've stopped learning; ie, not exactly to be desired.
Ernst Mach was an Austrian physicist in the late 1800s-1916. He's generally known for casting doubt on conventional thinking - which in his day, was that time was uniform for all observers, that there was a spatial frame which was at absolute rest for linear (translational) motion, and in particular that there was a way to tell if one's frame of reference was rotating with respect to the cosmos. With Einstein's papers in the 1905-1918 period, all that came under question, and we nowadays have new views. Einstein credits Mach's book "The Science of Mechanics" (originally in German) with influencing him.
And it is certainly possible to see how some parts of Mach's book influenced Einstein. Mach is not very precise in many of his statements, and sometimes states his cases too strongly, but such stimulating ideas, in the hands of an Einstein, can be worth a thousand conventionalities.
My essay is particularly focused on Mach's statements about whether rotary motion is absolute or relational, and explores three questions: Does the cosmos rotate? How could we tell? Why should we care?
If you are thinking there is a distinction between the cosmos rotating, and assemblages of objects (like galaxies) within the cosmos rotating with respect to the cosmos, you are correct; there is indeed a distinction. Nonetheless, some of Mach's ideas suggest that we might be able to measure cosmic "material influence" rotation (gravitation, ie spatial structure) vs what we observe via photons (light).
The essay is http://publish.uwo.ca/~krobe8/mach-rotation.pdf
As with all my scientific efforts, I reserve the option of changing my mind! If ever I stop changing my mind, that would mean that I've stopped learning; ie, not exactly to be desired.